Southeast Colorado Fishing Conditions – August 11

Published Friday, August 11, 2017

Arkansas River Headwaters

The upper river is in excellent shape, and the fishing here has been really productive lately. The discharge from Twin Lakes and Clear Creek Reservoirs has declined and the section near the inlet is still the best place for the wade angler to get in the water, especially when compared to the higher flow rates of the lower river. We are seeing a lot of caddis and yellow sally stonefly activity through Hayden Meadows down to Granite. Grasshoppers are beginning to become more important as the larger aquatic insect activity in the river slows down. The flows at the middle river are finally down below 1,000 cfs in Brown's Canyon, and Chalk Creek is running clear, giving us excellent conditions in Browns Canyon. There is a wide range of insects available to fish right now, from small midges, caddis and pale morning duns up to much larger stoneflies and grasshoppers. Depending on where our afternoon showers fall, any of our tributaries have the potential to be problematic.

The fishing has been good for channel catfish. Anglers from shore have had success using a variety of baits for catfish. The crappie is slow. Anglers fishing from boats have reported catching a few saugeye. The high water boat ramp is usable.

Clear Creek Reservoir

The trout fishing has been slow from both shore and boat at Clear Creek Reservoir. Early morning has been the best time to fish for trout. The size of the rainbow trout caught by anglers ranged from 8 to 12 inches. Shore anglers reported that the trout are still biting PowerBait off the lake's bottom. A few boat anglers hooked into trout on Kastmaster lures and Tasmanian Devil lures. The kokanee salmon fishing from a boat remains extremely slow. Only one kokanee salmon was netted from a boat this week. The reservoir is closed to trailer motorized watercrafts on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The current boating hours are from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Jackson Lake

The lake level is still good and it is roughly 2.7 feet down. The current surface water temperature is around 74 degrees. The lake is open to boating. Fishing had been good for channel catfish, walleye, freshwater drum, and wiper in the early morning and in late evening.

Anglers have been catching channel catfish and black bull heads using a variety of baits including night crawlers, shrimp, mussels, and cut bait. Anglers have had some success catching wipers using mussels as bait. The wipers have been caught using various jigs and spinners. The fishing for all other species has been slow.

Lake Pueblo

The current surface temperature is around 77degrees. The fishing has been fair to good lately. Look for walleye in deeper water now that the temperature has gone up. Lindy rigs, grubs, and live bait are producing walleye. The bass fishing is improving, and soft plastics, spinner baits, and crank baits will still produce some fish, as well as top water baits in the early morning. Early and late in the day will produce better results now that the water has warmed up. We have not received many reports on trout fishing recently. The catfish are being caught on the west end using chicken liver.

The fishing at Martin Lake was good this past week. There were reports of trout being caught on worms, PowerBait, and spinners. Anglers did not catch anything very big, but there were plenty of fish caught in the 12 to 15 inch range. Several anglers reported catching northern pike in the 18 to 24 inch range. One angler brought in a 42.5 inch pike that they caught on a silver Kastmaster. A different angler reported catching a 28 inch wiper.